A Poetry Festival for Peace

The Poetry Festival of Cartagena, Colombia, began life back in 1997, developing out of the ‘Siembra’ (‘Sowing’) poetry workshops initiated by its director Martín Salas Ávila together with members of the workshop. This year, in its 26th edition, the festival brought together poets from Spain, Bolivia, México, Senegal and myself from Aotearoa New Zealand, alongside poets and musicians from the Caribbean and Cartagena from 1 to 10 December 2022. Previous editions have included Aotearoa New Zealand poets Te Kupu and Ron Riddell.

Manuel De la Rosa, Mónica Zepeda, Daniel Ayoroa and Lilián Pallares.

With the title ‘La Poesía en la Ruta de la Paz’ (‘Poetry on the Path of Peace’) the festival visited different neighbourhoods of Cartagena and towns in the interior, including Macayepo, site of a massacre by paramilitaries in 2000. It included a visit to a women’s prison, participation in a church service and a homage to the singer Yadira La Chamaría de los Manglares. Martín Salas no longer has his long dreadlocks but his respect for animals means the festival is strictly vegetarian, and at each stop on the journey we were treated to delicious local dishes. This year we were hosted in the school of Yoga Wellness in La Boquilla, a quiet beach a short ride from the centre of Cartagena. Our hosts, Roan and Alejandra treated us to delicious and colourful breakfasts and lunches on their large wooden terrace, with the beach a short walk away.

‘I am a cultural worker. My interest began at my college José María Córdoba in Montería, with a desire to take culture to all parts. More than a poet I’m a promoter… I like to share. One example is ‘Siembre’ (‘Sowing’), which before becoming a workshop was a folded pamphlet to share the poems of my friends, and later I included my own poems. My work is to share the things I like, be it poetry, theatre, art or culture in general.’
—From an interview with Martín Salas by Jennifer Ballestas for El Parche Cultural, 2016.

Poets, musicians and audience in the Nelson Mandela plaza.

Colombian poet Lilián Pallares and I arrived from Barranquilla to join the festival on the 6th December and our first stop was the Nelson Mandela neighbourhood of Cartagena. In the circular plaza beneath a huge tree we were greeted by a troupe of young dancers and shared our poems alongside people of the neighbourhood who danced and sang and told the history of the neighbourhood. As the sun set Manuel G. Dela Rosa and Yadira La Chamaría de los Manglares performed and got everyone dancing.

Dance troupe performs in Nelson Mandela plaza.

Our second day of the Festival, we travelled by bus to Macayepo in the Montes de María where we shared poems with children of the area before having lunch in the patio of one of the neighbours.

Charles Olsen in Macayepo.

Our bus struggled with the hills and the way back was even steeper so we had to return by jeep, with our driver telling us the names of each hill and the accidents and deaths that had happened on each one.

Lilián Pallares and Daniel Ayoroa lunch in Macayepo.

While waiting for the jeep to arrive we took a dip in the Macayepo Arroyo where festival director, Martín Salas, recited poems in the stream, and local musician Manuel Dela Rosa sang for us in the shade of the trees.

Lilián Pallares wades in the Macayepo stream.

After our visit to Macayepo we stopped in San Jacinto, visiting a cultural centre Café y Restaurante Ecléctica and the Café Literario de los Montes de María in front of the Municipal Library of San Jacinto, where we enjoyed the local gourmet CerroMaco coffee.

It was the evening of the 7th December, the Night of the Candles in Colombia, and the plaza was full of people enjoying the evening, loud explosions of firecrackers, a colourfully lit road train that passed every now and then with its blaring music as we sat on the terrace and shared our poems with two local musicians adding accompaniment. Even one of the young waitresses recited her poems.

Poetry and music with a noisy colourful backdrop in San Jacinto.

Then back on the bus (fortunately still going after its struggles with the inclines in the Montes de María!), and our long journey back to Cartagena, which was not without its drama as traffic came to a stop on a dark road, and as the news passed up the queue the cause became more and more dramatic —an armed hold-up by 40 attackers— when in reality it was only fight between two men on the road. Anxious moments before the local police arrived and got things moving again.

In the evening of the 8th December, poets and friends met in the Plaza San Diego in front of the University of Fine Arts, where we began with a delicious ‘tinto’ –a coffee– from one of the street-sellers before Martin Salas invited us to recite our poems. We had a mic and speaker to be heard over the bustle of the streets, the clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages, the parakeets in the trees, and between recitals there were shouts of ‘Poesía en la ruta de la paz!’ –‘Poetry on the path of peace’. A local folk dance and music troupe were performing in the plaza for tourists and locals eating out on the terraces and were kind enough to let us finish before filling the air with Cumbia and the energetic Mapalé.

Listening to poetry in a Cartagena plaza.

Our poetry tour of the walled city of Cartagena finished in the Plaza de Bolívar in the arched walkway of the Banco de la República, where the elegantly dressed El Caribe Real recited a text from Gabriel García Márquez's 'Love in the Time of Cholera', and we were each invited to share anecdotes or reflections on Gabo’s work and whether 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' could be adequately adapted for cinema.

POETRY PEACE – festival director Martín Salas in the streets of Getsemaní.

The night didn’t end there. We left the city walls for the neighbourhood of Getsemaní, which has received a makeover since my last visit almost 10 years ago. Martín disappeared for a while only to reappear with sodas and vegetarian pizza cones –pizza in the shape of an ice cream which was delicious and easy to eat in the street. Our friend Jaime Cortissoz Arte Geometrico, a geometric artist and actor, was getting into the swing of Christmas preparing his Santa Claus character for charity events and we went with him on a tour of the decorated streets of Getsemaní, then various nightclubs with live music and lots of dancing.

Festival programme, 1-10 December, 2022

The programme for Friday 9 December said, ‘Worship of Joy and Eucharist, in the Spirit of Father Pachito and Father Sergio Restrepo’ in the Parroquia Santa Rita de Casia - Jesuitas, followed by ‘Memoria Lunada Poética y Cultural’ (Poetic and Cultural Remembering Beneath the Full Moon) in the ‘Bonga’ of the San Vicente de Paúl neighbourhood—I can’t find the definition for ‘bonga’ but the night began in a circle beneath a huge tree where there was a shrine to the Virgin Mary. This is far from your typical poetry festival—although previous editions have included more formal presentations in venues such as the Adolfo Mejía Theatre of Cartagena—and each day is an adventure into the unknown. As festival director Martín Salas says, it is less about the poems and more about poetry itself.

As festival director Martín Salas says, it is less about the poems and more about poetry itself.

Realising we were going to recite poems to the congregation during the Catholic mass, we hurriedly skimmed our poems searching for suitable material. Lilián Pallares had forgotten her reading glasses and asked Manuel De la Rosa to help her choose a poem. Their whispered consultation drew the ire of the priest, who paused mid-sermon to scold them, letting slip a 'les vale huevo [la misa]', which could roughly translate as ‘you don’t give a damn about the service’. Shortly afterwards, he challenged us to recite a poem on the theme of women, looking directly at Lilián. Wilberth Gamboa, who proselytises with poetry in the streets of Cartagena with his powerful voice, took up the challenge with a poem celebrating women.

Finally when it came to Lilián’s turn she stood in front of the congregation to recite but struggled to see the words due to the poor light, to which the priest suggested she stand behind the alter where the light was brighter. So Lilian stood at the alter below the crucifixion and recited her poem ‘Emperatriz de la vía láctea’ (‘Empress of the Milky Way’), dedicated to the women of the parish, which, roughly translated, goes:

    I want to be a cow,
    to be born, grow up, die like a cow.
    Eat grass, play on the moss, chase the wind,
    walk up the hill with my cow friends.
    To be nourishment, warm milk, goddess venerated by the bull,
    Grand Matron of the Universe.
    Wake with the sun, skip across the meadow, lie in the pasture,
    chew the cud beneath the trees and say mooo,
    seed of all words.
    I want to be a sacred animal, fertile muse, empress of the Milky Way,
    to live the other side of time.
    To be a cow and nothing more.

(From the collection 'Bestial', Olifante Ediciones de Poesía)

Lilián Pallares recites 'Empress of the Milky Way'

After poems, music, and chunks of watermelon we jumped in taxis to our next rendezvous with people of the San Vicente de Paúl neighbourhood, who shared news of their cultural and environmental regeneration projects as we walked up a hill (like cow friends) and recited our poems and songs in the light of the full moon. The evening finished with a vegetarian meal on the front patio of one of houses —most homes are fenced in for security— as disco lights created a festive Christmas atmosphere.

Manuel De la Rosa recites beneath the full moon.

Saturday 10 December was the final day of the Poetry Festival of Cartagena. In San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and in Barranquilla it was complicated to go out running alone in the streets so I jumped at the chance to go for a run with our host, Roan of TRECE 31 Human Evolution. The moon was setting in the sea and the sun was about to rise over the manglares as we set off along the sand towards the point, some 4km away. The first hurdle was crossing a waterway which I thought would be shallow but actually came up to our waists. Wet through and carrying my trainers we continued on. In the lea of the point we swam in the calmer sea before heading back the way we’d come. We finished with a yoga stretch and another dip. The other poets were just waking up when we got back and we had a lovely breakfast together. 

Roan and Lilián with melon for breakfast.

Charles Olsen recites his poem Ōtākou

Poets and story-tellers from Cartagena arrived along with the folk singer Yadira La Chamaría de los Manglares, in whose honour the closing event was held. Between poems and stories Yadira sang her songs, accompanying herself on the tambor. Yadira’s infectious smiles and laughs combined with her music energised us all to get up and dance.

Lilián Pallares and Yadira 'La Chamaría de los Manglares'

The conversations and laughs continued over another delicious lunch before the young Colombian artist Vanesa invited us to paint words or pictures of peace on a military backpack. And so the 26th Poetry Festival of Cartagena, ‘Poetry on the Path of Peace’, drew to a close.

Painting on the path of peace.

However there were still surprises to come. I little way along the beach was a School of drumming ‘Tambores Calbildo’ and we’d been invited to attend the initiation of a young woman ‘tamborera’. Chairs had been set up in a big circle with performers in the inner circle and path lined with fire torches and woman drummers led from the school to the circle on the beach. As the sun set—a large red ball sinking into the sea—the celebration began. The cool evening breeze was a relief after the heat of the day. 

The following morning a few more of us joined Roan for a class of AfroBeat dance and then a relaxing yoga and meditation with Alejandra and our final breakfast before heading our separate ways. Lilian and I headed off down the coast to Rincón del Mar in a shared taxi with vallenatos playing on the car radio and the green verges rushing past.

Festival programme.